DBO1

Well after an awful lot of hard graft, the DBO was finally completed in August of 2005.

Deciding where to cut the hole in the Roof

Now there’s a hole in the roof…No turning back
now….lets hope it doesn’t rain

The back end of my garage was partitioned off making a space 2.7 metres wide by 1.8 metres deep. The partition consists of timber framed stud wall and lined with 9mm plywood sheets.

Mr B midway through partition wall construction

The steel pier. A scrap yard bargain at £35

The mount and scope had to be raised quite a way off the concrete floor of the garage, so was mounted on a 2.1 metre long, 5mm wall thickness, steel pipe. This was found in a scrap yard and came complete with a 400mm square 25mm thick plate welded to the base. The whole thing is held down using 10mm blind Rawbolts. Brian Burt made an adapter to mate the pipe to the Losmandy Mount.

Open clamshell with anti-reflective paint on the
coaming

The completed clamshell lid

The clam shell hatch was based on a design by Alf Jacob Nilsen, who’s own observatory is described in Patrick Moore’s book ‘More Small Astronomical Observatories’ published by Springer. Made from ply, the structure is very simple in design and was easy to make. This hinges on a 25mm thick plywood frame that has been inset into the garage roof. To stop it leaking, the felt roof was peeled back and allowed to run up the sides of the coaming.

The whole thing was then painted with a rather messy roofing mastic to seal all the joints. So far the design has been watertight. To stop vibration being transmitted to the pier, a 9mm plywood floor was laid over a 50mm thick layer of expanded polystyrene foam sheet.

The P.C. workstation that drives…….

…….all this!

To power the scope, dew heater and CCD camera, a constant Voltage power supply was obtained from Maplins for the princely sum of £40…another bargain, as Telescope House were offering a lesser specified unit for about £60.

The observatory can be remotely operated from the house using a wireless network and Windows XP Remote Desktop Connection software. Slap a load of paint over everything and install a mid priced PC desk at one end, and I’ve ended up with a roomy and permanent imaging setup.

…and with the new guidescope modification.

The completed imaging setup…..

My thanks go to all those that spent many hours helping me with this project, notably Abie, Uncle Frank, Mr B, and Paul. I owe you big time guys! …Oh and why is the observatory called the DBO? Well It was originally intended to be called the Tremorvah Barton Observatory (TBO), but when the design was being drawn up, a someone substitued ‘Tremorvah’ and replaced it with Dick….It’s been known as the Dick Barton Observatory or ‘DBO’, ever since! For those of you too young (and I’m one of them) to remember ‘Dick Barton’ ……Click this link

In the Summer of 2011, the DBO was dismantled and moved to a darkfield site out in the sticks, where the DBO2 was built to allow both visual and astrophotography to be done.

At the same time, a new scope, and Altair Astro 254mm F/8 Ritchey-Chrétien, was aquired.